Nearly one thousand five hundred years before the incarnation of Jesus Christ, God established the construction of the Jewish Tabernacle, including the mercy seat, which is the cover on the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies:
And you shall make a mercy seat of pure gold… And you shall make two cherubim [angels] of gold… And make one cherub at one end one cherub at the other end… And the cherubim shall have their wings spread upward, covering the mercy seat with their wings and facing one another… And you shall put the mercy seat on top of the [Ark of the Covenant] …and there I will meet with you… (Exodus 25:17-22).
Indeed, throughout the forty years of wandering in the wilderness, God’s presence would be upon it: “from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim.” The “mercy seat” was the provision for man’s meeting with God.
Reconstructed model of the tabernacle, in Timna Park, Israel. During the Exodus, the Ark of the Covenant was housed in the tabernacle whenever the Israelites stopped. (Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.)
Defining Some Words
The crisis that all humankind faces is the universality of sin, death, and separation (enmity) from God. This is clearly stated by the apostle Paul:
Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned… (Romans 5:12).
In consequence all are under the judgment of God. A prominent theme of the Bible is God’s plan to redeem (reconcile) humanity. It is helpful to understand the meaning of a variety of words used to explain that plan.
- Expiate/Atone – make amends for; pay the penalty for; give satisfaction for a wrong
- Propitiation – the means whereby sin is covered and remitted
- Reconciliation – to change man’s enmity into friendship with God
- Justification – the pronouncement of a person as righteous by acquittal from guilt
The Plan
The apostle John stated the plan simply: “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation [“atoning sacrifice,” NIV] for our sins” (1 John 2:2, NASB). Likewise, the apostle Paul explains, “…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation [“sacrifice of atonement,” NIV] in His blood through faith (Romans 3:23-25a, NASB).
Christ, through His expiatory death, is the personal means by whom God shows His mercy [acquittal from guilt] to the sinner who believes. Said another way, God’s holiness demanded punishment for man’s sin. God, therefore, out of love, sent His Son to make substitutionary atonement [pay the penalty] for man’s sin. In this way God’s justice was propitiated [sin covered and remitted] by directing the punishment of man’s sin toward Christ.
The apostle Paul summed this up well: “All this is from God… that God was reconciling the world [changing man’s enmity] to Himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them [acquittal from guilt] …God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us [atonement], so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God [justification]” (2 Corinthians 5:18-21, NIV).
The Mercy Seat
The writer of Hebrews reviewed aspects of the Tabernacle: “And behind the second veil, there was a tabernacle which is called the Holy of Holies… and above it [the Ark of the Covenant] were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat…” (Hebrews 9:3, 5).
He then explained Jesus’ salvation role in that God had “prepared a body for Him” (10:5, His incarnation) so He could administer the mercy seat in the Holy of Holies “…not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood… once for all, having obtained eternal redemption” (9:11-12).
It was here, “from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim,” where God said He would meet with sinful man. That “meeting,” which resulted in mankind’s redemption, was fulfilled in Jesus. It was enacted in history as “…she [Mary Magdalene] stooped and looked into the tomb and she beheld two angels in white sitting, one at the head, and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been lying” (John 20:11-12).
A picture of Jesus, our Mercy Seat – the provision for man’s meeting with God!
“Through Jesus’ voluntary expiatory sacrifice in the shedding of His blood, under Divine judgment upon sin, and through His resurrection, Christ has become the Mercy Seat for His people.” (Vine, p. 342).
Source: Vines Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, Vine, Unger, and White, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Articles on “Propitiation,” “Mercy Seat,” “Justification,” and “Reconciliation.”
